Forgiveness must be one of the hardest things that God calls us to do! Yet it is the one thing that we desire the most for ourselves – that's when we are willing to admit that we have even done something wrong! Have you ever noticed that about yourself? You excuse your actions or try to lay some of the blame on someone else or on circumstances? Taking responsibility for our own mistakes and wrongdoings is very hard indeed but yes, we do always want to be forgiven for what we have done. Yet let someone else hurt us or our loved ones, we find it almost impossible to let go of that anger and bitterness that we feel towards them. We feel morally justified in our reaction to what they have done and consider forgiveness as a way of "letting them off the hook."
My ex-husband (deceased) once physically abused me, (I didn't stick around to let him do it a second time), and my parents were, understandably, furious. This was over twenty years ago and I had moved on with my life. One of the first things that I did when I became a Christian was to forgive him for all the things that he had done to both myself and my children. Although I never saw him face to face to do this, I forgave him in my heart. The relief that I felt when I did this was like having a large block of ice taken off my chest! About a year ago I was with my mother and we saw him in a mall where we were planning on doing some shopping. I was astounded at how much anger and bitterness she still carried towards him. She was equally amazed at the fact that I had forgiven him and seeing him didn't worry me in the slightest! I explained to her that her lack of forgiveness for what he had done would not have affected him in the slightest. The only person that her anger affected was herself! She held all those negative emotions in her heart and would bring them out to mentally "chew on" every now and again over the last twenty years.
Once she realized that she was only hurting herself and that forgiving him would benefit her even more than it would him, she was able to let go of that anger and pain. She was also able to forgive herself for not being able to protect me, something that she had been blaming herself for, unnecessarily, all these years. Not too long after that he made front page news. He was a scam artist and had finally been caught up with after fifteen years of low key activity. Shortly before his trial he died under rather peculiar circumstances. We were both able to feel pity for him because we had forgiven him. We both realized that even though he had done so much harm (the beating he gave me was just the final straw) we found no pleasure in his death or even relief. Our forgiveness did not change his life in any way, but it certainly changed ours. Walking around nursing old hurts and anger is very detrimental to our physical health and our spiritual healing and growth.
Although in our case we never got the opportunity to express our forgiveness, nor would it have made any difference if we had (he was a sociopath), there are so often times when we need to tell someone that we have forgiven them. Very often you will find that that person had no idea why you were so angry with them! This will often lead to a gradual restoration of the damaged relationship. It is a fact that most often the people we need to forgive are the people who have been closest to us. It is a simple fact of human nature that the ones we love the most are the ones who have the most power to cause us pain!
In addition to all of the benefits to ourselves in forgiveness, the question must be asked "what right do we have NOT to forgive?" When we consider how Jesus died, the torture he endured, just so that we could be forgiven of our sins – then we need to understand that with such a great sacrifice having been made for us, we must forgive others in return!
